


walk the moon

by capo (gliss)



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blind Date, M/M, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-13 22:35:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4540029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gliss/pseuds/capo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hakuryuu gets set up on a blind date with Morgiana. Except it's not Morgiana that he ends up going on the date with, but someone his friends insist is "a better fit." And then he's getting hauled off to the middle of nowhere in the dead of night, praying for his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	walk the moon

**Author's Note:**

> for an [anon prompt](http://ginsaan.tumblr.com/post/126310840043/) on tumblr c:   
>  most of this is based around walk the moon's "avalanche" please [listen to it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECBhz_1AaSM) if you haven't before it is very nice. there are hints of canon references in this fic but it is _not_ reincarnation au although somewhere out there magi is definitely happening. anyway! please feel free to cry about juhaku with me on my blog. i've basically landed in hell. save me.

 

 

Hakuryuu is ready.

To be precise, he was ready twenty-three minutes ago, which is how late his date is currently. The sun is setting fast now, slipping beyond the horizon in a way that suggests, rather ominously, a dangerous sort of time instead of a shy, romantic evening.

He’s playing with his phone now, which is horrible table manners on top of being hell on his eyes in the dim light of the cafe-like restaurant, but he can’t really be bothered. Might as well text Alibaba and Aladdin while he’s there already, so with imperious and what he hopes are vaguely foreboding keystrokes, he shoots off a message.

**to: Alibaba & Aladdin**

[19:54] Hey, am I in the right place? Belial’s Cafe, right?

Alibaba and Aladdin, apparently waiting for his text, reply immediately.

**from: Alibaba**

[19:54] YEP!! IS HE THERE YET

**to: Alibaba & Aladdin**

[19:55] …He?

**from: Alibaba**

[19:55] I mean, uh

[19:55] don’t worry Hakuryuu it’s all taken care of!!!! Mor has training tonight so she can’t make it but we got someone who’s totally a better fit for you!!!!!

Ah – yes, Hakuryuu thinks, that makes so much  _more_  sense. He’s frowning so hard at his phone that he doesn’t notice someone plopping down in front of him until a slender finger is poking his forehead.

He looks up.

Heavily shadowed eyes simmer back at him.

He looks back down.

**to: Alibaba & Aladdin**

[19:58] who did you set me up with

“Hakuryuu, right?” The guy’s voice is cheerful and bright but – weirdly husky, and that coupled with the eyeshadow immediately make Hakuryuu consider things he normally would not consider. He watches, a little dumbfounded, as the guy sticks out his hand. “I’m Judal. Let’s ditch this shitty restaurant.”

“I– what?”

“I hate cramped spaces like this.”

Hakuryuu opens his mouth to point out that he’d already  _paid_  for the food, set out and cooling on the table before them, but Judal merely waves over a waiter and has the guy packing it all up. It all happens very quickly, and Judal chatters at him the whole time – he’s twenty-four years old, has like thirteen foster siblings, met Alibaba on a raid of all things and then changed the subject before Hakuryuu could process this newly alarming fact.

The waiter returns with a plastic bag full of containers holding the food that Alibaba had expressly told him to order because “Morgiana says she likes lobsters, lots of seafood” and now Hakuryuu is watching Judal with a vaguely dark thought that the guy could have a shellfish allergy and  _die_  on this date if he isn’t careful and –

“So, what d’ya say?”

Judal leans all the way across the table, placing both his hands heavily in front of Hakuryuu. It kind of looks like he’s going for a kiss, which for all Hakuryuu knows could be a thing that happens on first dates with super hot guys and their restless mouths, so he leans in a little bit as well, and then bonks his forehead directly into Judal’s nose.

After that things get a little blurry. He’s pretty sure Judal’s nose is bleeding, or that he sneezed into his bangs, and a lot of people are swearing or gasping, but then Judal has a damp paper towel pressed up against his nose and laughs and says thickly through the paper towel: “Is that a yes or a no?”

“A yes,” Hakuryuu replies, feeling kind of like he owes the guy.

Judal tosses away the slightly blood paper towel and Hakuryuu is relieved to see that he’s stopped bleeding. Then he grabs Hakuryuu’s hand and leads him out the door, their uneaten dinner swinging dangerously from Judal’s other hand. It’s  _dark_  now, not even last-dredges-of-sunset dark, but actual nighttime where there’s no sliver of lighter sky, just the busy crackle of nightlife appearing and the two of them hand in hand walking down the street.

Hakuryuu kind of likes it. He never goes out at night much, and Judal is nothing if not a good conversationalist and a steady guide, his step never changing and his hand never hesitating to steer Hakuryuu away from the curb. Hakuryuu can’t remember the last time he was  _pampered_  like this, and in the colorful glow of neon lights and street lamps, Judal looks as wild and romantic as the kind of life he’s always dreamed for himself, unapologetic and beautiful.

His eyes look really good like that, heavy against the darkness.

And then Hakuryuu realizes that they’re out of the city and into the quietness of a suburban street, and his pleasant feelings vanish.

“Where are we –”

Judal’s hand covers Hakuryuu’s mouth. “Shh,” he says, “or people will hear you.”

“That’s kind of the  _point_?” Hakuryuu tries to get out wildly against Judal’s hand, but it comes out like a string of monosyllabic yells.

“No, no, the point is that we need to sneak up this hill and it’s barred against trespassers,” Judal replies calmly, like he understood the garble of panic issuing from Hakuryuu’s mouth. So they go. It’s not like Hakuryuu has a lot of choice in the matter, evidently being set up with an axe murderer for a blind date.

Somewhere in the non-panicked portion of his mind, he hopes Aladdin and Alibaba will have to pay  _loads_  for the funeral.

*

Judal disables sleep mode on his phone and stacks a water bottle on top of the screen to light up enough of the grass so that they can see their food. Hakuryuu’s never seen the trick before, but the presence of the whitish glow in the midst of a pitch black middle-of-nowhere hill assuages his nerves somewhat, enough for him to notice the notification banner sliding down the top of the screen.

“Leonids?” he asks, softly.

Judal’s smile lights up brighter than the water bottle phone flashlight. “Hey, do you track meteor showers too? I love space. Feels really, I dunno, at home up there, you know?”

“Not… especially,” says Hakuryuu, although now that Judal’s brought it up…

“I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid,” Judal says softly, lightly.

“Why didn’t you go through with it?” Hakuryuu asks. Judal looks like the kind of guy who could go anywhere and do anything, like the kind of guy where qualifications or natural talent don’t stand in the way of anything if he really wants something.

Judal makes a movement. Hakuryuu thinks it might be a shrug. His phone buzzes again, a five minute warning. “Changed my mind about things. Besides, hanging out with losers like Alibaba and the brat… it’s not as lame as I thought.”

Hakuryuu swears something shifts inside his chest. Judal picks at a cold French fry. “So, what about you? Any childhood aspirations?”

“Oh. Umm.” Hakuryuu turns away from the glow of the phone-bottle-light. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“It used to be just getting into college,” Hakuryuu admits. Figures his life is boring as hell while Judal is dreaming about traversing the galaxies. “But now that I’m finished with it…”

“… get another degree,” Judal suggests, and suddenly it sounds easy. For a moment, it sounds easy and attainable and like the rest of the world doesn’t get a say in what Hakuryuu can or can’t do with his life. “Then you can earn all the money with your fancy Ph.D and I can spend it all on spaceships.”

“But then you’d never come back,” Hakuryuu points out.

“Of course I would.”

He doesn’t say any more than that, and it’s something Hakuryuu has started to notice about him: that he states things like they’re obvious, and doesn’t explain. He’s mysterious, Judal, even though everything about him is on display, cut sharp and bright. He looks good in harsh lighting and dim lighting. Hakuryuu stretches out on the grass as Judal’s phone goes off, and a moment later, Judal shuts off the alarm and does the same, settles his head right next to Hakuryuu’s with his feet pointing the opposite direction.

Hakuryuu’s stomach jerks viciously at the proximity.

But it’s okay, somehow. He feels comfortable as the sky pelts down in brilliant sparks, as Judal starts talking again, happily pointing out meteors that he thinks Hakuryuu can’t see. And then Hakuryuu forgets that Judal is literally wearing a golden choker and has makeup slathered on his eyelids and led him off into the night by themselves,  _illegally_. Instead he finds himself smiling gently, wishing he could hold Judal’s hand without dislocating his arm.

“Are you making a wish?” Judal hisses through a brief respite.

“What?”

“Are you making a wish? That’s the whole point of this, isn’t it?”

“I thought we were trying to appreciate the meteor shower,” Hakuryuu says, a little uncertain.

“Make a wish, Hakuryuu,” Judal insists.

So he does.

He isn’t all that surprised when, a moment later, Judal whispers theatrically, “What’d you wish for?”

“As if I’d tell you that, and sabotage my own wish,” Hakuryuu laughs.

“I’ll tell you what  _I_  wished for,” Judal says. “I wished that I’d hear you laugh.”

Color floods into Hakuryuu’s face. “Tell me more bad jokes,” he murmurs. “I’ll laugh.”

“I’ve been telling you bad jokes  _all night_.” Judal shifts again, closer, and Hakuryuu can practically feel how soft his lips are without actually touching them.

“Tell worse ones, then,” Hakuryuu says, surprised at how easy it is to demand things of Judal.

Judal laughs breathlessly, and then he’s cupping Hakuryuu’s chin with more accuracy than Hakuryuu would have expected of him, and then whispers, slowly, “The worst jokes aren’t even jokes,” before he kisses him.

It’s better than the meteor shower. It’s upside down and unorthodox and wild and crazy and cute, and then Hakuryuu kisses back hard with the kind of joy that comes with having a wish come true.

Judal leans away just the tiniest bit. “So.”

“So,” Hakuryuu smiles.

“Can I see you again?”

Hakuryuu thinks for a moment about having to pick their way down the hill in the dark, then the dark softness of the night evaporating under city lights. There’s something worth chasing here, perhaps something worth keeping. He nods, and his whisper “yes” comes as light as the showers in the sky.

 

//  **end.**

 


End file.
